REPUBLICAN LEADERS HOPE FOR COURSE CORRECTION IN FALL: Nine months after election, GOP lacks new message for target voter groups - MRS. OBAMA on the rules for the daughters

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“BEHIND THE CURTAIN” column – “Eve of Destruction,” by Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen: “It is almost impossible to find an establishment Republican in town who’s not downright morose about the 2013 that has been and is about to be. Most dance around it in public, but they see this year as a disaster in the making, even if most elected Republicans don’t know it or admit it. Several influential Republicans told us the party is actually in a worse place than it was Nov. 7, the day after the disastrous election. This is their case: The party is hurting itself even more with the very voters they need to start winning back: Hispanics, blacks, gays, women and swing voters of all stripes. The few Republicans who stood up and tried to move the party ahead were swatted into submission: Speaker John Boehner on fiscal matters and Sen. Marco Rubio on immigration are the poster boys for this.

“Republicans are flirting with a fall that could see influential party voices threatening to default on the debt or shut down the government … ‘We come off like we’re angry and frustrated that more of our fellow Americans aren’t angry and frustrated,’ said a senior Mitt Romney campaign official … Whit Ayres of North Star Opinion Research, who has been drilling down on this issue for the conservative public-opinion group Resurgent Republic, said: ‘Shutting down the government is the one way that Republicans can turn Obamacare from a political advantage to a political disadvantage in 2014.’” http://politi.co/13px5tU

“CHRIS CHRISTIE: ‘I’m in this business to win,’” by James Hohmann in Boston: “With 82 days until his likely reelection as governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie laid out his clearest rationale yet Thursday for an almost-certain 2016 presidential campaign: He can win. Speaking privately to Republican leaders here for the party’s summer meeting, he touted his crossover appeal … The 41-minute luncheon speech was closed to reporters at Christie’s insistence, sources said, but an attendee at the meeting offered a full recording of the governor’s uncharacteristically revealing comments … The 168 members of the Republican National Committee are the party’s establishment, and the governor grasped hard for the mantle of establishment favorite. ‘He connects with this group,’ said Republican elder statesman Ron Kaufman. ‘This is his team.’

“Preemptively defending the more moderate elements of his record without dwelling on them, Christie said the GOP is ‘bound for defeat’ if voters have a litmus test that a candidate must agree with them 100 percent. ‘I’m in this business to win … I think that we have some folks that believe that our job is to be college professors. Now college professors are fine, I guess. You know, college professors basically spout out ideas that nobody ever does anything about. For our ideas to matter, we have to win because, if we don’t win, we don’t govern. And if we don’t govern, all we do is shout into the wind. So I am going to do anything I need to do to win!’ …

“Christie … took a not-at-all-subtle shot at Republican Governors Association Chairman Bobby Jindal (R-La.), another likely 2016 candidate, who told the RNC at its winter meeting that Republicans should stop being ‘the stupid party.’ ‘I’m not going to be one of these people who’s going to come and call our party stupid,’ Christie said. ‘There’s nothing wrong with our party and its principles and its core. We’ve got to get back to deciding that the RNC is about electing Republicans.’” http://politi.co/14jxBED

DAN BALZ DEBUTS at #11 on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list of Aug. 25: “COLLISION 2012, by Dan Balz. (James H. Silberman/Viking.) An account of the election of 2012 by The Washington Post’s chief correspondent combines insider details with an analysis of the forces that are reshaping the electorate.”

FIRST LADY ON THE COVER OF PARADE, “Michelle Obama on the move,” by Maggie Murphy and Lynn Sherr: “On why she no longer sports the bangs that caused such a sensation: ‘You know, it’s hard to make speeches with hair in your face!’ … On why she chose a leadership role on the issue of childhood obesity in America: ‘When we started, there were people who were thinking, “Oh, that’s not an issue. Why is she picking that” But in a short amount of time we have turned a challenging problem into one where there are glimmers of hope and change. Our goal is to see the numbers reduced in a generation.’ … On the rules she has set for the Obama daughters as they grow older: ‘I give them as long a leash as they can handle. What I tell my kids is, I’m preparing you for college and for life. So, having independence, knowing how to set your own boundaries, figuring out how to make that balance. We still have screen time rules.’ …

“On whether there will be a female president in her lifetime: ‘Yes, I think the country is ready for it. It’s just a question of who’s the best person out there.’ … On whether she sees Secretary Clinton getting the job: ‘She hasn’t announced anything, so I’m certainly not going to get ahead of her. [laughs]’ … On whether she will ever run: ‘No.’ … On her thoughts about turning 50 in January: ‘I have never felt more confident in myself, more clear on who I am as a woman. But I am constantly thinking about my own health and making sure that I’m eating right and getting exercise and watching the aches and pains. I want to be this really fly 80-, 90-year old.’” http://bit.ly/13pQdIs ... See the cover. http://bit.ly/1cRYWq3

EXCLUSIVE: BILL KRISTOL, editor of The Weekly Standard, returns to ABC’s “This Week” roundtable on Sunday for the first time in 14 years.

CLICK DU JOUR: The first 2016 cheat sheet, listing early-state travel, foreign travel, networking efforts and political baggage for four Ds and seven Rs --AP’s Calvin Woodward, “2016 campaign checklist: Who's doing what”: “Here's a look at the hoops that people interested in the presidency must generally jump through to prepare for a campaign … The main players: For the Democrats, Vice President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley; and for the Republicans, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal; Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.” http://bit.ly/129UDjQ

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BREAKING – Reuters/Cairo: “Egypt braces for more violence at ‘march of anger’ protest … Deeply polarised Egypt braces for renewed confrontation after the Muslim Brotherhood calls for a nationwide march of millions to show anger at a ferocious security crackdown on Islamists in which [more than 600] were killed.”

--ECONOMIST cover, “The battle for Egypt … Egypt's bloodbath: The generals’ killing spree is a reckless denial of the lessons from the Arab spring”: “The world must … act. This newspaper warned Western leaders that their lack of response to the July shootings would cause trouble; it has. It should not repeat the same mistake today. America should /// withhold its next tranche of military aid (already disbursed for the current year) until a civilian government has been elected and takes office. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries should not write the generals a blank cheque just because they share a dislike of the Brothers. No one could ever have thought that reinventing Egypt was going to be easy. It has never had a proper democracy. Much of its populace is illiterate. Most of its people live in poverty. And the question of how to accommodate Islam has everywhere proved vexed. But the generals should stop and think: in modern history such immense obstacles have never been overcome by violence.” http://econ.st/14PokKM

--CBS’s “Face the Nation”: Sen. Lindsey Graham, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) and New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. Plus the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, and Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), and a panel with Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report, Kevin Madden and TIME International Editor Bobby Ghosh.

REMEMBERING BERT LANCE – Atlanta Journal-Constitution, A1 photo refer, “Carter confidant dies [at 82]: A colorful Georgia politician became known in some circles as the ‘deputy president’ after joining friend Jimmy Carter in Washington … Bert Lance is greeted by thousands at a welcome-home rally in Calhoun in 1977 after he resigned from the Carter administration. He was later acquitted of all charges in a high-profile banking scandal.”

MEDIAWATCH – FIRST LOOK – “Jake Tapper Reports: An Unlikely Hero to Air Wednesday Aug. 21 at 10pm” – Forthcoming CNN release: “Just days before President Obama will award Army Staff Sergeant Ty Carter with the Medal of Honor, CNN chief Washington correspondent Jake Tapper’s prime time special will feature an interview with Carter in the look back at one the deadliest days in the Afghan war. … Tapper traveled to Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state for the interview with Carter, whose Medal of Honor for his valorous action during the October 2009 attack on Combat Outpost Keating will mark the first time in nearly fifty years that two living service members are awarded the nation’s highest honor for actions during the same battle.

“In February, President Obama awarded the Medal of Honor to former U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Clint Romesha. Carter and Romesha were central figures in Tapper’s New York Times bestselling book, ‘The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor.’ The book … will be published in paperback on October 22.”

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